


Trying

by aideomai



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Plants, Weed, What Does A Neville Want, childhood bullies who won't stop hanging about
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 14:18:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14137785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aideomai/pseuds/aideomai
Summary: Neville had hoped when he left Hogwarts that he’d never have to see Draco Malfoy again; he’d barely even seen him in that last, terrible year, when Malfoy had dropped out somewhere around the Easter term. But then Harry, Ron, and Hermione came back from their delayed seventh year and with them, pale and sneering and sharp-tongued as ever, came Malfoy.





	Trying

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

It was embarrassing to still be made uncomfortable by your school bully when you were eighteen, especially if in the time since then you’d stood up against a semi-totalitarian regime, organised a resistance movement, fought in a war, and destroyed a horcrux. Neville was well aware of how pathetic it was, but being aware didn’t seem to make any grand difference, and being bitter about how unfair it was didn’t help either.

He’d hoped when he left Hogwarts that he’d never have to see Draco Malfoy again; he’d barely even seen him in that last, terrible year, when Malfoy had dropped out somewhere around the Easter term. But then Harry, Ron, and Hermione came back from their delayed seventh year and with them, pale and sneering and sharp-tongued as ever, came Malfoy.

“I know it’s weird,” Ron said, laughing a little, “but we were all weirdos, gone back to school, and he was in the same boat,” and Hermione said, “It’s not that he didn’t make terrible decisions, but I think he knows it, and I think - I think there’s some good in him, deep down,” and Harry said, “What? Er, I don’t know,” and went back to thumping a quaffle against Draco’s door until Draco emerged, tousle-haired and glaring and shirtless, and snarled, “ _What_ ,” and Harry made him go play one-on-one Quidditch outside.

That was the thing. It wasn’t just that they’d become friends with him, or hung out with him at Hogwarts. When they came back to Grimmauld Place, Draco did, too, taking over a room on the third floor, leaving a trail of half-finished mugs of tea and expensive sweaters and pulp paperbacks through the house. Hermione and Ron were over all the time too, of course, but they had at least the pretense of their own flat, which they retreated to sometimes; Ginny was there most nights, but still ostensibly lived at the Burrow, and anyway was away for weeks at a time for the Harpies’ training camps. It was only Draco - and Harry, of course - who was there all the time, even though as far as Neville was aware, he had his own perfectly good evil mansion in Wiltshire.

“But it’s not like he can stay at the Manor,” Harry said, blinking, when Neville brought this up. Harry leaned his elbows against the bar, scruffing his hand through his hair. “I mean, he hated it there. And his parents are still there.”

 _So?_ Neville wanted to demand. It seemed ridiculous that after years of preening about it, his sleek wonderful rich family, Malfoy wanted to escape them. It was another cruelty, another sign of how spoiled he was. Neville had his own flat now, though he didn’t use it much, but he visited his grandmother for dinner three times a week. You had responsibilities, in life.

Malfoy leaned up against Harry’s back. “My ears are burning,” he drawled. “Are you talking about me?” He was smiling down at Harry’s dark head, indulgent, but he took the time to shoot a quick, intent look at Neville. Neville felt his cheeks colour despite himself.

“Just wondering if you’re ever going to start paying me rent,” Harry said, grinning up at him, and Draco laughed.

“Nah,” he said. He’d picked up a few of Harry’s expressions: it sounded stupid, Draco’s ridiculous plummy accent and _nah_. “But I’ll buy this round. Gin and tonic,” he added to the bartender, “oh, and Ginny wants a pint of the porter,” and when the bartender came back she told him the price for all of their drinks, including Neville’s.

“I can get mine,” Neville said, embarrassed.

“No, it’s fine,” Draco said, not even looking at him, and Neville carried his pint sulkily back to the table, tried to convince himself that there was no way lager could taste sour.

It was his own problem, Neville supposed. Certainly everyone else had gotten over Malfoy’s history. Seamus and Dean were often busy, up at Hogwarts learning stonelore and continuing the ongoing rebuilds, but when they were about they accepted him without anger or interest. Ginny thought Malfoy was hilarious, and spent most of her time around him with her legs flung over Harry’s lap, begging Malfoy for impressions; once Neville had walked in on her teaching Malfoy how to throw a punch. Even Luna, whom Neville had hoped might be an ally, accepted Malfoy with her clear, wide eyes and a shrug, though she clearly discomforted Malfoy, and he steered clear. The best thing Neville could do was learn to tolerate him, to ignore him. But he couldn’t do that, either. Malfoy prickled at him. He said snide things. He watched Neville with those mocking grey eyes, like he was remembering all the times he’d humiliated Neville in school, and was relishing them.

He set the porter in front of Ginny with a grand gesture and Ginny touched his arm carelessly, said, “Thanks, Malfoy,” and went back to her story. “So I told them, just because I don’t want to do it now doesn’t mean I never will--”

“Who’s this?” Malfoy said, settling into his own seat and stretching his long legs out under the table so obnoxiously that his foot knocked against Neville’s. Neville jerked his away and Malfoy’s gaze drifted to him again, laughing and cruel, before he turned back to Ginny.

“The aurors,” Ginny said. She leaned back against the booth, her hair bright against the dark leather, tucked half over one shoulder and falling against Harry’s. Harry was watching her with that intense focus he seemed to save up for four - or, now, annoyingly, five - people in his life. “The thing is, I’m not sure about being an auror but I quite like the idea of it, only Quidditch has an expiry period, you know, and being an auror doesn’t. I’ll have ten, maybe fifteen years of professional Quidditch if I’m lucky, and then I can see about the training camps.”

“The camps are pretty brutal,” Malfoy said. He and Harry had come back from their twelve weeks training exhausted and grinning. Harry had collapsed onto the closest sofa in Grimmauld Place and slept for eighteen hours straight; Malfoy had wandered around for two weeks after looking like a dazed consumptive heroine just recovering, occasionally pausing in front of mirrors to admire his fading shiner.

“You did all right,” Harry said lazily, and Malfoy flung him a quick, pleased look.

“Sure,” Ginny said, rolling her eyes. “But it’s not like I’ll be decrepit in a decade. Just done with Quidditch, maybe. There are tons of aurors who start later in life, or stay later in life - look at… Shacklebolt.” A shadow passed over her face; she’d been going to say _Moody_ , Neville thought, but no one acknowledged it.

“You’ll be fine,” Malfoy agreed, and then, abruptly, “Not interested, Longbottom?”

Neville startled. “What?”

“I thought perhaps you’d be tempted,” Malfoy said, his pale gaze fixed on Neville’s face. “After all the fun you had in seventh year.”

“I wouldn’t call it fun,” Neville said tightly, “and I like my course just fine,” and Malfoy sneered at him and looked away.

Hermione patted Neville’s arm fondly. “Someone has to keep me company at college,” she said, “given that all of you have apparently given up on higher education,” and Ron laughed and started detailing Hermione’s latest panicked all-nighter. Neville risked a glance at Malfoy, but he was lounging back in his chair, staring sullenly at the ceiling, and he didn’t speak to Neville for the rest of the night.

\---

On Thursdays Neville had his three-hour phenology lecture, followed by a two-hour lab and then another four hours of technical free time that were usually his best chance at getting to spend some time alone in the greenhouses. He left tired and still thinking vaguely about his Mallowsweet, which was curling so tenderly and lovingly around the little stakes that he’d made for them that they were choking each other to death. Every time he prised some free they curled around his fingers, stroking over the pads of his thumbs, and he felt miserable about having to prune them down. In any case, they kept springing back up.

He bought a kebab on his way to Grimmauld Place and got in around eight to find a group gathered in the kitchen, which was steaming and fragrant. Malfoy was presiding over the stove, his shirtsleeves rolled up and rather pink in the face, and Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Luna were sitting at the long table with a few bottles of wine.

“Neville!” Ron said, cheery, and Neville sat down, narrowed his eyes at Malfoy, and accepted the glass of wine Hermione handed him. He dropped the plastic bag with his kebab on the table. “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” Neville said. He scruffed his hand over his hair, a little awkwardly, then caught Hermione’s gaze. “Robbie Selwyn’s joined my lab.”

“Oh, God,” Hermione said. “I’m sorry, that’s awful luck.”

“Who’s Robbie Selwyn?” Harry said, frowning. “Have I met him?”

Hermione grinned at him. “No, no, he was home-schooled, never went to Hogwarts. He’s truly awful, he’s _so_ full of himself. He’s been working on a thesis for something like six years, apparently, and he never stops rubbing it in that he joined the college when he was fifteen, and how important the thesis is--”

“As if that’s why it’s taking so long,” Neville said. “I heard that he dropped all his schoolwork in his third year to go after one of the professors, and when she wouldn’t date him he had a nervous breakdown and nearly flunked out.”

“No,” Hermione breathed, leaning forward and looking greatly intrigued. “But he says it’s because of the complications of a multi-disciplinary subject, administratively--”

“Yeah,” Neville said, unwrapping his kebab, “but Emma Macmillan, you know, the TA for Megaliths and Mountains, she got drunk on a night out and told Raj from my taxonomy class that actually, Selwyn would have been on-track to graduate three years ago, except when he had the breakdown Professor Lui retired, and she was the only one really qualified to mentor him.”

“That’s amazing,” Hermione said, the fire of university gossip in her eyes. “Ooh, I can’t believe he even got Professor Lui, the little snot. Everyone says that she was a genius, he definitely didn’t deserve her.”

“I think Wen Lui and Elizabeth Selwyn used to be quite close, back in the day,” Malfoy offered, over his shoulder. “Robbie’s mother, you know, and Professor Lui’s grandmother. She probably got forced to do a family favour.”

“And the creepy Pureblood information hotline strikes again,” Harry said, grinning, and Malfoy wandered over to flick the back of Harry’s head.

“Shut up. Why is it hot?” he said, and then caught sight of Neville and started looking very affronted. “What is _that_ , Longbottom?”

“What?” Neville said, and followed Malfoy’s glare to his kebab. “Chicken doner.”

“I’m making dinner!”

Neville blinked. “I didn’t even say I was coming for dinner.”

“But there’s lots,” Malfoy snapped, “and it’s going to be very good, it’s taking me hours! How unbelievably rude can you _be_? It’s stag with a demi glace sauce and a confit starter!”

“Why do the only meals you know how to make sound like they’ve been designed by a fairytale villain?” Ron wondered aloud. “You can’t make sausage and mash but you can spend eight hours dissecting a deer--”

“It only takes an hour or so to actually dissect the deer,” Malfoy said absently, before he went back to glaring at Neville.

“I don’t want any of that fancy stuff,” Neville said, glaring right back. “I’m hungry, I just wanted a kebab. I’m not here to hang out with _you_.”

Malfoy flushed. He seized up one of the wine bottles, snapped, “Fine,” and stalked back over to the kitchen stove. Luna gave Neville a sympathetic look, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione were all looking a little awkward, as though they felt sorry for Malfoy but didn’t want to say. Neville hunched his shoulders, seething. Only Malfoy could make him feel unwelcome in Grimmauld Place.

“Never mind,” Hermione said, trying to keep the peace. “We won’t eat until midnight, most likely, maybe you’ll be peckish again by then--”

“I’m going as _fast as I can_ ,” Malfoy snarled.

“Oh, Draco,” Hermione said, “I didn’t mean…” Ron caught her hand, kissed her knuckles, gave her a quick, amused look and shook his head.

“How were your classes today, Hermione?” Luna asked, and Hermione started, a little too rapidly and then more normally, to talk about her Indigenous Species Law seminar. Harry got up with his mug of red wine and went over to sit on the kitchen counter next to the stove, talking to Malfoy low and easy, until the set of Malfoy’s shoulders relaxed and he started to laugh and flick globs of gravy at Harry. It was _weird_ , Neville thought bitterly. Harry and Malfoy hating each other felt like one of the natural laws of the universe, but everyone was acting as though they hadn’t noticed the world turning upside down.

He ate his kebab. It wasn’t very good -- too fatty, and the garlic sauce too thin - and he didn’t feel so hungry now, anyway, but he forced it down all the same. The wine and the heat in the kitchen were giving him a headache, even when he took off his robes and sat in his vest and jeans, and eventually he left to go sleep in one of the spare rooms, waved off by a cheery, loud, and quite drunk group.

Around three he went back down to the now deserted kitchen for a glass of water. The dishes were still quietly washing themselves, and set on the counter, covered with some of Hermione’s tinfoil, a perfectly plated meal was waiting for him.

Trust Malfoy to make leftovers passive-aggressive, Neville thought, but he didn’t want Malfoy to win the pettiness game, so he took them for lunch at uni the next day. They were quite good.

\---

Harry installed a weird new Muggle thing in Grimmauld Place, a grey box with a big dark window above it that occasionally sent off sparks but usually just allowed them to play strange games with a dragon that was unlike any Neville had ever read about. Harry and Ginny became obsessive, sitting shoulder to shoulder for long Sunday mornings, and Hermione was quite good at it when she could be bothered, and Ron was awful at it but had a wonderful time, yelping with laughter. Neville tried it once but the controller hummed in his hands in a way he didn’t like and couldn’t track: it could have been strange Muggle technology, it could have been magic interacting with Muggle things in a bad way, it could have just been an odd effect of Harry’s handling, which they were all trying not to think about. Neville avoided it and, irritatingly, Malfoy did too. Neville didn’t like being in the same boat as Malfoy.

He couldn’t quite bring himself to mind one Saturday, though, when he’d been slumped on the couch for hours trying to prep for his exam next week while the others played their weird game, that Malfoy started stalking around, restless and deliberately annoying.

“ _Draco_ ,” Harry said, when Malfoy walked in front of the window for the third time and the little dragon crashed into the sea. He threw the controller, sending it glancing lightly off Malfoy’s shoulder, and Malfoy lunged at him with pleasure; they scuffled around on the carpet for a bit, breathless and half-laughing, half-cursing, while Ginny heckled and Hermione looked vaguely interested.

“I’m _bored_ ,” Malfoy cried, when Harry finally got him down, sitting firmly on him and playing Stop Hitting Yourself until Malfoy yelped for mercy. “This is boring. I don’t want to sit around with your weird Muggle shit all day, let’s go outside--”

Harry looked pointedly to the garden window, which opened out onto a steady stream of grey rain.

“We could go do something,” Ginny said, nodding at Malfoy. “Somewhere indoors but… out of the house.”

“You mean a bar,” Hermione said, amused, and Malfoy immediately perked up.

“Yes!” he said. “Let’s do that. Ginny, you’re so smart. Leave Potter and marry me instead.”

“All right,” Ginny said, and crawled into his lap, where they made smoochy faces at each other for a while. Everyone was _laughing_. At _Malfoy_ \- no, worse, _with_ Malfoy. Even Ron was laughing. Neville thought wistfully about the days when a display like this would have given him an aneurysm.

“Okay,” Harry said eventually, smiling all pleased and happy, “enough of that,” and he stood up and scooped Ginny up like she weighed nothing, let her drape half over his shoulder like a very contented cat. She bit his ear, quite fondly. “The Crown, then?”

“Shock me, why don’t you,” Malfoy drawled, putting out a hand, and Harry hauled him to his feet.

“Nev,” Ron said. “You coming?”

Neville looked regretfully at his notes, spitefully at Malfoy, and gloomily out at the sky. He was going to go crazy if he stayed in Grimmauld Place for another minute, he thought, and stood up with a reluctant nod.

The Crown was a Muggle pub, but it was only a ten minute walk from Grimmauld Place and it meant Harry never got hassled. Neville either, which he felt stupid about, comparing himself to Harry, obviously he wasn’t - but people did stop him sometimes, and it always made him feel small and strange, like an imposter, the way he’d often felt in school when he was hanging out with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, just waiting for them to run off and ditch him again. He wasn’t bitter about it, or anything: they were best friends, and Neville was their good friend. It was a lovely thing to be, and Neville had been good friends with Dean and Seamus, too, and with Luna, and with Ginny, too. He’d never had a best friend, but he knew he’d done well, all the same, even if everyone else seemed to pair - or triple - off.

Malfoy gave Ginny a piggyback to the pub, and Harry strolled along behind them all in the leather jacket Neville thought might once have been Sirius’s, his face distant and far away. The rain made his hair curl damply around his ears, and when Neville offered to share his umbrella, Harry blinked absently and then smiled, that weird, lovely smile that made you feel special and frightened at once, to be chosen.

“Thanks,” Harry said, shuffling in against Neville’s side, and Malfoy looked back at them and sneered. Neville rolled his eyes.

They settled into the big corner booth and Ron went up to get the first round. Neville ended up between Malfoy and Luna; he made a face and turned towards Luna, and for a few hours, at least, he was able to ignore Malfoy, while the afternoon crawled into evening and the sky went dark without ever lightening.

“Oh, yes, Harry,” Luna said, picking up on a piece of conversation that Neville had missed. “Have you been assigned partners yet?”

“No, we’ve got another three months of shadowing older aurors,” Harry said, making a face. He’d been very vocal about not enjoying it much; trainee aurors weren’t meant to enter any action, and Harry had been formally reprimanded for catching a criminal who’d been about to escape. “But there’s rumours they’ll announce it next month, so we can prepare, you know, do additional training sessions together, that sort of thing.”

“I’m going to get Bones,” Malfoy said glumly. “I can feel it in my bones. She already hates me and she’s going to hate me more if I keep fumbling on the partnered Apparition exercises, and then she’s going to make me run laps around Quidditch fields at four in the morning. She’s crazy.”

“They usually put younger aurors with more experienced ones,” Harry said, nodding. “But we’re hoping… Well. I might talk to Shacklebolt.” He and Malfoy exchanged a look; Malfoy was sitting up a little straighter, sucking in the corners of his mouth in a way that gave him a sour expression. Neville had a feeling he was trying not to beam.

“Using your connections for profit, Potter?” Ginny said, wagging her finger at him. “That’s not the Gryffindor way.”

“I just think we’ll work better together,” Harry said quietly, and Malfoy ducked his head, hair falling over his eyes.

Neville felt grim, faintly ill. “My round,” he said, standing up.

He let a few others at the bar go first, leaning on the counter and knuckling at his eyes. He felt tired; and the pints hadn’t made him tipsy so far, just sodden and sad. It was as though Malfoy was better at being his friends’ friend than Neville was. Malfoy didn’t doubt himself, he was full of that Pureblood Slytherin certainty, even being on the wrong side of a war hadn’t stuck to him. He had a horrible, charmed life, where things always went right, and even on his best days Neville felt like he was stumbling along in the dark.

He’d only just ordered when Malfoy came up by his side, all the light in the dim pub seeming to settle in his hair.

“It’s coming,” Neville said, surly. “There were a few people waiting before me.”

“I know,” Malfoy said, voice crisp. “I just thought I’d come help you carry them back.” He lowered his voice. “Can’t use magic here, you know.”

Neville rolled his eyes. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Well, I’m here now,” Malfoy said.

Neville stared at him. Malfoy kept _foisting_ his company on Neville, like Neville couldn’t get away for even ten minutes. Abruptly, Neville said, “Harry and Ginny are really happy, you know.”

Malfoy’s cheeks went pink, as sudden as though he’d been slapped. “What?”

“Maybe Harry likes you now, Merlin knows why,” Neville said. “But he’s never going to want you like that. I think he’s going to ask Ginny to marry him, soon.”

“I know,” Malfoy bit out. “I helped him buy the ring.”

Neville snorted. “Then what? Are you going to try and have him even while he’s with Ginny? That’s low, even for you. Otherwise you’re just pathetic, hanging around, waiting for him to notice you.”

“He _does_ notice me,” Malfoy said. “And I don’t want to - to have him! He’s my friend!”

“Oh, okay,” Neville said, voice thick with disbelief.

Malfoy stared at the counter for a moment. He looked faintly dulled, quietened down, the colour leaching from his skin. Then he looked up, eyes bright with venom. “Don’t project your horrible little crush on Ginny onto me,” he said.

“What?” Neville said, startling.

“Everyone knew about it in fourth year,” Malfoy said, sneering. “We thought it was _so_ funny in Slytherin. She was obviously always mad about Potter, even if she had to settle for you at the Yule Ball. I hoped for your sake that you’d moved on from that pitiful hang-up but look at you, you never go on any dates, you never hook up, you’re just sadly hanging about Grimmauld Place and you don’t even _live_ there--”

“Just because I haven’t wormed my way in like you--”

“I live there! Harry asked me to!”

“How lucky for you,” Neville spat. “You know you’re not worth half of him--”

“ _I know_ ,” Draco said, voice shaking, and the bartender set their drinks down in front of them.

She eyed them, a little dangerous, like she was ready to kick them out if she had to. “Do you boys need a tray?”

“We’re fine, thanks,” Draco said, and snatched up as many glasses as he could carry, storming back towards their table.

Neville followed slower. When he got there, Malfoy had settled in next to Harry’s side with a look at Neville like he was daring Neville to say something. Neville half-wanted to sit next to Ginny, to make his own point, but she was bracketed in by Harry and Hermione, and anyway, Malfoy had struck a horrible nerve. Neville had had a crush on Ginny, for a while there. He’d known they were only going to the Yule Ball as friends. He’d even known, in the DA the next year, when they both got giggly on some of Fred and George’s spiked Butterbeers and the Room of Requirement had cleared out, that when Ginny suggested they _practice_ together, that too had only been as friends. But it wasn’t like he’d had a long line of girls queuing up to kiss him, and it seemed like a perfect opportunity, to get to kiss Ginny and not to even have to worry too much if he was bad at it, because that was half the point. And it turned out he hadn’t actually been that bad at it, after all; they’d kissed for half an hour, until Neville’s lips were buzzing and he was desperately trying to keep his hips tilted back, and Ginny had given him a dreamy-eyed look and said, “Mm, that was nice,” and they’d never talked about it again.

But Neville wasn’t harbouring some eternal love for her, or anything like that. He’d been a little sad in sixth year, sure, but everyone had seen Harry and Ginny coming for years. And going through a war turned out to be a pretty good cure for unrequited crushes, and now he just thought Harry and Ginny made a nice couple, and he was glad he’d never said anything, had never made things uncomfortable or given them reason to pity him.

Only it turned out that Malfoy had known all along. _We thought it was so funny._ Another humiliation, as though he’d never escape his old bully. And now Malfoy knew he’d been right, and he sat up straight next to Harry, spiky and spiteful, his rich, drawling voice cascading over the table, his pink mouth curled in mean pleasure. He didn’t even talk to or about Neville, just told stories about some of the things the Slytherins had gotten up to that kept the rest of the table in hysterics and Draco the star and Neville, as always, in the shadows.

It was only Neville who didn’t laugh - and Harry, who sat smiling crookedly but quiet, watching Draco with that bright green stare. When Draco got up to go to the bathroom Harry followed him, and they took ages coming back. Neville caught sight of them standing in a shadowy corner near the bar, talking with their faces bent close. Malfoy kept shaking his head. He looked tired.

They came back at last with a round of shots. “I want to go _dancing_ ,” Malfoy said, and Harry shrugged, and the rest of the table agreed readily enough. Angelina Johnson had joined them by now, and Dean and Lavender, and the whole group of them were glimmering, shining, like they’d already saved the world and they were ready to conquer it.

“Let’s go to - what’s that club, the place with the rainbows,” Ginny said, and Malfoy nodded enthusiastically.

“Yes! Let me send Pansy a Patronus--”

“In the alley out back,” Hermione said hurriedly, and Malfoy winked at her.

“Want to come with me, Granger?”

“Oi,” Ron said comfortably, and Hermione looked smug, Ron’s arm around her shoulders.

“Well, you’re invited too, Weasley,” Malfoy said, dimpling, “of course--”

“You’re shameless,” Ginny said, laughing. Malfoy preened a little.

“All right, come on, let’s finish these drinks, then,” Dean said. Neville toyed with his empty glass, looked at his watch.

“You coming, Nev?” Harry said.

Neville shook his head. “It’s late enough.”

“It’s ten o’clock,” Malfoy said, gaze shuttered, like he could almost be being polite, friendly. Neville resisted the urge to scowl back; it would only have the effect of making him look like the childish one.

“I’ve got an exam on Tuesday,” he said. “And I’ve got - things to do tomorrow, I can’t be hungover.”

Malfoy was already turning away, pale and disinterested. Neville said his goodbyes.

\---

Neville spent the night at Grimmauld Place again, letting himself in with his own keys, and he woke up early enough to spend a few hours sitting at the desk by the study’s window, going over his notes, a cup of tea and plate of toast by his side. At eleven he finally went and showered, shaved, dressed in the nice shirt his grandmother had given him, and went downstairs.

He put his mug in the sink and then jumped at the loud groan that met the clatter. Neville wheeled around. Malfoy was stretched out on the long wooden bench at the table. As Neville watched, he sat up slowly, cupping his head in his hands, rubbing his hands over his face. He was in last night’s clothes, except he’d lost his trousers and a few buttons off his shirt, and his eyes were red-rimmed, very faint stubble visible where the morning sun hit his jaw. He stared at Neville like he’d never seen him before, then croaked, “Water.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Neville said, and got a glass out of the cupboard, filled it, took pleasure in banging it on the table loud enough that Malfoy winced. He still picked it up and drained it in greedy gulps, the line of his throat bared.

“I’m dying,” he said after.

“You’re hungover,” Neville said, unimpressed. He wrinkled his nose. “And you smell rancid.”

“You look nice,” Malfoy said, still groggy. Neville stared at him, unsure how to react. “Where are you going?”

“St Mungo’s,” Neville said, thrown enough to tell the truth.

“Oh,” Malfoy said. He stood up. “Okay. I’ll come.”

“What?” Neville blinked. “No, you won’t.”

“Give me five minutes to get dressed,” Malfoy said, ignoring him, and left the kitchen.

Neville felt rather as though he’d been hit on the head. “What?” he said plaintively, but no one answered, although a moment later Harry and Ron came in, bent over each other. Ron looked a little green. Harry called hopefully for Kreacher then said, “Morning, Neville.”

“Hi,” Neville said, not sure what to do with his hands. “Big night?”

“Good one,” Harry said. “Have you seen Kreacher about? We fancy a fry-up--”

“Less talking, more bacon,” Ron said.

“Uhm,” Neville said. “He brought me some toast this morning?”

“Oh, good,” Harry said, and called again; this time Kreacher appeared, covered in leaves, to tell them triumphantly that he’d been fixing some of the booby traps in the gutters. Harry looked like he wasn’t sure how to respond to this and so settled for awkwardly patting Kreacher on the head and asking about breakfast, which set Kreacher into a storm of delighted activity.

Malfoy appeared in the doorway. “Okay,” he said. “I’m ready.” He still looked a little grey, but he’d put on a fresh shirt and dark wool trousers and fixed his hair. When he came into the kitchen Neville caught the whiff of spearmint.

“Where are you off to?” Harry asked, through a yawn, head propped on his fist.

“We’re going to St. Mungo’s,” Malfoy said.

Neville began, “I really don’t think you should--”

“Oh, cool,” Harry said. “Have fun. Here,” and he shoved the first bacon sandwich Kreacher prepared into Malfoy’s hands. Malfoy sniffed it, looked a little ill, and then clearly reconsidered and took a tentative bite, nodding.

“Thanks,” he said. He looked at Neville. “Ready. Are we taking the Floo?”

“I was going to get the tube,” Neville said, because Hermione had been practicing with him, and Neville had never much liked Floos. Malfoy looked briefly dispirited, then shrugged.

Neville spent the walk to the tube sure that he was about to be cursed, or attacked verbally, or - tripped. Something childish or mean or both. But Malfoy just kept quiet by his side, strolling along with his hands in his pockets and his face tilted up to the sky. It wasn’t raining anymore; the air felt fresh and clean, new, the sky a subdued grey. At the station Malfoy was hesitant and clearly worried, but he had a travel card with a few uses scratched out on it, so Hermione had clearly been teaching him as well.

In the train Malfoy sat quietly, his legs tossed out in front of him like always. The train was mostly empty, at least. Neville said, awkward, “This always reminds me of Apparating but in, like - slow motion,” and Malfoy smiled and didn’t say anything.

Neville didn’t know why he was trying, except that it seemed weird to pick a fight about this. But the whole thing was bizarre and he didn’t know what Malfoy was thinking, and it wasn’t until they got to St. Mungo’s that he realised properly what he was doing, and panic started beating in his throat, high up.

“Maybe you could just - wait here,” he said, as they passed through the reception.

Malfoy’s shoulders hunched, and he kept his gaze on the wall ahead. “I’d rather not,” he said.

Neville glanced about and realised that there were more than a few people looking at Malfoy, glaring at him. Neville felt his jaw tighten. It was all that Malfoy deserved. But he said, “Fine,” tightly, and added, “If you’re a bastard about any of it--”

“Any of what,” Malfoy said, and Neville ground his teeth, shook his head, led the way shakily up to the fourth floor.

His dad was having a bad day. He was sat in a corner of the ward, his face turned to the wall. When Neville approached him he started shaking his head; when Neville put his hand on his dad’s shoulder, he started trembling finely, like a leaf in the wind. Neville swallowed around the lump in his throat. He drew out another chair and sat quietly next to his dad, talking to him about uni and the changes Ron was making to Grimmauld Place, painting the back rooms, and how Grandmother was starting to flirt with the idea of going back into politics. After a while his dad’s hands stopped trembling, and he turned his wide, empty eyes to Neville. Neville kept talking.

It took him a while longer to realise that he could hear Malfoy talking, the low warm murmur of his voice as smooth and friendly as when he was talking to Harry in the evenings at Grimmauld Place. Neville startled, something like fear digging at his spine. He shouldn’t have brought Malfoy here; he’d handed Malfoy more ammunition on a golden platter. But when he turned around, Malfoy was just sitting at the low table with Neville’s mum, his face smiling and pleasant, his head bent to something.

“Hang on a minute, Dad,” Neville said, and stood up, walking over to join Malfoy and his mum.

“Anyway, then Harry brought this monstrosity home,” Malfoy was saying, “because he figured if the Playing Station worked, why not this, too, a big horrible elektrikity thing, as though we don’t have a perfectly fine working kitchen. It’s called a baby-cue, which sounds ominous, if you ask me, but they were all very excited, so they set it up in the garden, only then Longb- Neville realised that some of the house’s strangling ivy had gotten into the workings of it and were _feeding_ off it.”

He kept glancing up and down between Neville’s mum and the table, where, Neville realised, he was folding one of Neville’s mum’s gum wrappers, neat and assured, quick, tight turns. “Can you imagine? We could have all been strangled for the sake of some burgers which Kreacher makes perfectly well inside. I tell you, _Gryffindors_. There,” he added, and pushed forward the gum wrapper which had been transformed with every neat stroke of Malfoy’s fingers into a tiny paper crane.

Neville’s mum picked it up with clumsy fingers, turning it back and forth in her hands. She made strange, childish noises; Neville realised that she was cooing. His heart cracked in his chest.

“There’s a charm, too, my mother taught me,” Malfoy said, and took out his wand. Neville’s mum startled violently, the crane tumbling from her hands, and Malfoy caught it, Seeker’s reflexes, and met her watery gaze. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “Should have expected that. Look, though, it’s quite safe,” and he picked up the crane, pointed his wand, murmured a low charm that Neville didn’t know. The crane stretched out its little triangular head, shivered all over, and then took off on unsteady wings, flapping awkwardly through the air and back to Neville’s mum’s waiting hands.

“I folded it a bit lopsided,” Malfoy said regretfully, “it’s not going to fly quite straight,” and then he looked at Neville for the first time. His gaze was unreadable, his cheeks pinched. Neville couldn’t speak.

His mum held up the crane to him, and he bent to her. He cleared his throat. “It’s nice, Mum,” he said. “Really nice.” His pulse felt hot and shivery, like it wouldn’t settle into rhythm. “Shall we show Dad?”

\---

They were silent walking back down the stairs and onto the street. Neville had that awful feeling he always got after visiting his parents, like he wanted to cry, and then the wave of guilt that followed, because he shouldn’t feel like that from visiting his parents: who were alive, at least, and who loved him as well as they could, which was more than some people had. But he was confused, too, startled and not sure what to do with any of it.

He said, “How do you - I wouldn’t have picked you to be, uh, like that.”

“Oh,” Malfoy said. He looked uncomfortable. He put his hands in his pockets. “Well, my. My father isn’t well.”

“Oh,” Neville echoed. He remembered what Lucius had looked like, in the Final Battle, how haggard and worn he was, the weird echoing quality to his eyes, like they opened up onto rows of empty black rooms. He couldn’t quite bring himself to be sorry. He wasn’t sure if Malfoy wanted him to be. All the same he said, “That’s shit.”

“Yes,” Malfoy said. He licked his lips. “Anyway, he’s at the Manor with my mother and I - I didn’t want to live there, too, but I try and visit. Sometimes.” He glanced quickly at Neville. “I’m not as regular as you are about it.”

“Well,” Neville said. He didn’t know what to say. A few hours ago he’d been judging Malfoy for not living at the Manor; surely he should judge him more now. He kept thinking of Malfoy’s hands on the paper, the long clean lines he made. “I’ve gotten used to it. I’ve had enough time to, anyway.”

“Right,” Malfoy said. His voice sounded strange, careful. “What are you doing now?”

“I don’t know,” Neville said. “I should study some more.”

Malfoy nodded. “Grimmauld Place is going to be awful right now,” he said, almost absently. “Everyone will be hungover and moaning about it.”

“Yeah,” Neville said. “Well, I - I have my own flat, actually.”

“Oh, yes,” Malfoy said. “I think I knew that.”

“I’m not there a lot,” Neville said. He paused. “It was my parents’ old place.”

“Okay,” Malfoy said.

“I’ll probably go there,” Neville concluded. He looked up at the sky, still grey. It was warming up a little, but with the threat of rain hanging about it just made it feel humid, warmth prickling along Neville’s collar. After a moment he said, “Do you want to come over?”

“Yes,” Malfoy said. “That would be nice.”

\---

Malfoy’s shoulders relaxed a little when they reached Neville’s street. “I know this area,” he said, looking about. “There’s a lot of old wizarding flats around here.”

“Yeah,” Neville said, digging the heavy keys out of his backpack and setting up the stairs to No. 11. “I think it’s been in my family for a while. My dad inherited it from my uncle, and he had it from his mum, she was a Prewett--”

“Right,” Malfoy said. He looked startled and relieved at once. “I always forget you’re a Pureblood, too.”

Neville laughed, harsh. “I bet you do,” he said.

Malfoy winced. “No,” he said. “It’s - look, I just mean because Harry and Hermione aren’t, and the Weasleys are such weird Purebloods. But it’s - it’s nice.” Neville gave him a wary look and Malfoy hurried on. “Not because of the - because of Muggleborn prejudice. I’m. I don’t know. I don’t think I - I think I’m getting better. But it worries me a little when Harry brings all that Muggle stuff into Grimmauld Place. I don’t think the house likes it. And I’m always on edge, in Muggle pubs.”

Neville slotted his key into the front door, quiet. The first few times they’d been to The Crown he’d sat sweating, counting the Muggle money over and over again, before he went up to the bar to order, sure he’d do something to give himself away. His family had never had a problem with Muggleborns, for as long back as he could remember, but his grandmother had drummed the importance of secrecy into him since he was a baby. He didn’t want to agree with Malfoy, so he didn’t, but he didn’t argue, either, just lead the way in.

The house was an old Georgian one, once an enormous city mansion like Grimmauld Place but for decades since converted into four big apartments. Neville led the way up the carpeted stairs and into his flat, which had stripped bare floorboards and whitewashed walls. There were prints up on the walls and empty golden vases set in overflowing bookshelves. There was a warm, embroidered Turkish carpet sprawled out across the carpet. There were photos tacked to the door of people Neville had never known. Malfoy looked about with calculating eyes, and Neville stood with his hands half-open, waiting.

“Your parents’ place, huh?” Malfoy said.

Neville nodded.

Malfoy looked around again. “I’m not sure how I’d start to redecorate Malfoy Manor,” he said, after a moment. “If it was just mine.”

“Yeah,” Neville said. “Well. A manor is bigger.”

“Still,” Malfoy said.

“I’m going to make some tea,” Neville said, and went into the kitchen, which at least was fairly plain, with a sweet windowsill that looked out back to a tangled garden. Malfoy trailed in after him, and Neville got out two cups, found a box that still had teabags in it. He’d gone shopping recently, thank Merlin, and there was fresh milk, but he felt self-conscious and odd. Malfoy had seen through it all so easily. Neville supposed anyone would. He’d never brought anyone back here before. It always made more sense to hang out in Grimmauld Place.

Malfoy said, “What if you brought some plants? You could take some from your uni, or just go to one of the markets on the weekend, pick some you liked--”

“Why are you being nice?” Neville demanded. Malfoy snapped his mouth shut. He’d gone white when Neville looked over at him. “We had an awful fight,” Neville continued, folding his arms across his chest, “and I know I upset you, too, it wasn’t just me who was affected. Why are you doing this? What’s your game?”

“I don’t have a game,” Malfoy said, staring at him.

“Then what’s going on?”

Malfoy opened and closed dry lips. He said, awkward, “Harry said I should be nicer.”

Shame crawled through Neville; he turned away, face burning. “Harry doesn’t need to look after me,” he said. “I can take care of myself. You can’t - you can’t - we’re not in school anymore.”

“No,” Malfoy said, and Neville thought he was agreeing, until Malfoy said, “That’s not what I mean. Harry said that you - that you like nice people.”

Neville stopped. He blinked at Malfoy. It didn’t make sense. “What?”

Malfoy swallowed, his thin face drawn and uncomfortable. “Hermione likes people who are smart,” he said. “Especially if they’re smart in a different way from her, like Ron or Harry. Ron likes people who are funny, and Ginny likes people who are funny, too, especially if they’re a bit mean about it. Harry is - Harry…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I think Harry sometimes just…”

“Picks you,” Neville said.

“Yes,” Malfoy said. He laughed a little wildly. “And you don’t know why, and even if you want it, it’s - it’s--”

“Terrifying,” Neville said.

“Yes,” Malfoy said. He looked away. “But it’s - anyway, none of them really cared if I was _nice_ to them, it turned out. I never had to think about it. I never had to try. I can - I can do all the other stuff but I’m not very good at being nice. So I’m trying.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry if it’s obvious and… weird.”

Neville didn’t know what to say. He stood still, hands hanging by his side, fingers curled, staring. Malfoy still wasn’t looking at him. After a moment, Neville said, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Malfoy said. The kettle began to whistle.

“Do you take sugar?” Neville said. Malfoy shook his head.

Neville made the tea in silence, dumping the teabags in a saucer by the sink. He should get plants, he thought. He wasn’t sure why it had never occurred to him before. He’d felt guilty everytime he thought about rearranging the flat, taking down his parents’ stuff, changing the rooms he’d lived in when he was born and not since he was one. But it had never felt like his flat; every time he sat on the couch he expected their ghosts to flit by, and they weren’t even dead. Adding plants wouldn’t be a betrayal, though. Just something new.

He snuck another glance at Draco, who still looked horribly embarrassed and on edge. Neville set the tea in front of him and said, “Now I feel like a prick.”

Draco laughed, rough. “No,” he said, with an odd, distant smile, “I’m definitely the prick,” and Neville smiled, only a little awkwardly.

“Well,” he said.

Draco took a careful sip of his tea. He put his chin on his hand and blinked up at Neville. He had very long eyelashes, Neville noticed. “Would you like to smoke a joint?”

Neville laughed, caught-out. “What?”

Draco shrugged. “I have some on me, if you want.”

“Wow,” Neville said, “you’re so cool,” and Draco grinned and then looked quickly serious again.

“Yes,” he said, “well, no, I have trouble sleeping sometimes. At least if you’re stoned it doesn’t matter that much if you’re awake. Do you want?”

“Sure,” Neville said. He’d smoked gillyweed a few times, with his coursemates lying in Ketteridge Field after class. It made colours change, gave objects long rainbow shadows, and every now and then you ended up floating. He’d never smoked weed, though. It seemed like such a Muggle thing, incongruous for Malfoy, but as he watched Malfoy got a tobacco pouch out of his pocket and started to roll, eyes intent, fingers careful. It reminded Neville of Malfoy with the crane. He was good with his hands.

They sat in the windowsill to smoke it, the heavy old window jammed up with a sticking charm. The windowsill was big but not that big; Draco was tall and Neville had grown again over the summer, his legs longer, shoulders broader. He tried not to take up too much space, but Draco helped, curling against the side and folding his legs beneath him so neatly it was hard to believe he spent most of his time tripping people over. He offered Neville the first drag, lit the joint again when it went out in a sudden gust of wind.

“Just - try and hold it,” he advised, when Neville coughed, and Neville tried again, managed it this time. “There you go,” Malfoy said, rolling his eyes, “you’ve managed what every lousy thirteen year old--” and then he caught himself, cheeks going pink.

Neville watched him. He exhaled lazily. “It’s all right, Malfoy,” he said, “don’t hurt yourself,” and Malfoy pushed his hand through his hair in a distracted gesture he’d nicked off Harry, and looked a little as though he was trying not to smile. He held his hand out for the joint.

It was nice. It made the world go fuzzy, warm at its edges. After a while Neville stopped worrying so much about taking up space on the windowsill and let himself sprawl out the way he wanted to, one leg falling outside and the other tangled up with Malfoy’s, and Malfoy lounged back with his eyes half-closed like a cat’s. He was half-smirking, but Neville found he didn’t mind as much as usual.

Neville told him about the flat, the problems with redecorating, and Malfoy nodded along. He went quiet when he was stoned, his pupils huge and his speech, when he did speak, slow and wandering, easily sidetracked, often just trailing off. It was odd, considering how garrulous Malfoy was the rest of the time, but the weed took the sharp corners off all of Neville’s anxieties and insecurities and he didn’t bother wondering whether it meant Malfoy was bored or thought he was stupid. Malfoy was here, wasn’t he, trying to be nice. Neville continued onto the subject of plants, the ones he wanted, Latin names falling free: _Sansevieria trifasciata, Monstera deliciosa, Philodendron bipinnatifidum._

“What’s that,” Malfoy said.

“Oh, I can show you,” Neville said, and took Malfoy’s wrist, drew him into the living room. He went to the bookshelves and took down a huge, antique plant encyclopedia. No one had ever been able to tell him if it was his mother’s or his father’s. Maybe they’d just liked the illustrations. All the same, the first time he’d found it he’d poured over it for hours, entranced, heart beating hard. He flipped it open now, showed Malfoy the ones he meant, and Malfoy nodded along. They stretched out on the prickly carpet on their stomachs. Malfoy rolled another joint; Neville got a new mug to use as an ashtray.

“How’s your hangover?” Neville remembered to ask, and Malfoy shrugged.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Fading.”

“Yeah,” Neville said. “This stuff is nice.”

Malfoy smirked. “Told you.”

“Yeah,” Neville said, though he now couldn’t remember if Malfoy had. He ran his fingers idly over his own forearm. Malfoy watched him, raising an eyebrow, and Neville flushed. “It feels good!”

“Yeah,” Malfoy said, and ran his own fingers over Neville’s forearm, which felt even better, a loose shiver of goosebumps following Malfoy’s path. Neville sighed, closing his eyes, and Malfoy did it again.

“You can’t sleep?” Neville said.

“Now?”

“In general.”

“Oh,” Malfoy said. “Well. Sometimes I have trouble. I imagine I’m not alone, in that house,” he added, a little dry, and Neville nodded.

“Luna once told me,” Neville said, trying to keep his mouth from twitching, “that you just have to think good thoughts.”

“Oh, brilliant,” Malfoy said. “I never thought of trying that.”

Neville laughed, and Malfoy smiled a little. He closed his eyes, though his hand kept trailing up and down Neville’s arm. It was nice, Neville supposed. They all touched each other a lot, at Grimmauld Place, like in the aftermath of the war they all had to keep touching each other to remind themselves that they’d survived, that they were real, even corporeal. Neville had always liked it, but Malfoy had never touched him before. He supposed that was why it felt different to other people doing it, the way it wasn’t quite calming, or wasn’t just calming.

“Do you remember when we all thought Harry was dead, and you said that it wasn’t over, and you killed the - the snake?” Malfoy said, in the same slow, easy voice he had said everything for the last hour.

It took a moment to sink through Neville’s consciousness and then he startled, propping himself up on one elbow, staring. “Yes?”

“Sometimes I think about that,” Malfoy said, and folded his hands over his heart, like a vampire going to sleep. They were both quiet so long that Neville couldn’t tell if he was awake or not anymore.

\---

Malfoy went back to Grimmauld Place when evening came on, but Neville stayed in his flat; he really did have to do some studying. He had trouble concentrating, though, kept standing up and pacing about restlessly. The weed had worn off and Neville was buzzing, until he abruptly became exhausted and went to bed, slept for ten hours like the dead. He woke up uncertain that the whole of yesterday hadn’t been a dream.

He went to his classes, and studied for his exam, and on Tuesday he took it and hoped it had gone okay. He was always better at practicals than written exams, but there were another two labs where he could hopefully pick up his grade if he did very badly. After the exam he went over to Grimmauld Place, and played cards with Ron for a bit before the front door banged open and Harry and Malfoy came through, arguing loudly over something. Malfoy kept going off into peals of laughter that were clearly annoying Harry, who shouted, “No, listen, just _listen_ ,” even as they came into the kitchen.

“Hi,” Harry said to Neville and Ron, distracted, and then, “I don’t see how you can say that! Even if Baddock was getting results, he was trampling over everyone in his way to do it, it was completely against regulations--”

“Oh, Potter, please let me take a written and signed statement of that to Professor McGonagall,” Malfoy said, smirking all over his face. “The sheer audacity of you having a go at anyone for breaking rules. Hi,” he added. “How was the exam, Longbottom?”

“Oh,” Neville said, startled. “Okay, I think.”

“I had a really good reason for every rule I ever broke,” Harry said.

“Really?” Malfoy said. “Did you have a good reason for pulling me out of the meeting with Priestley last week so we could go and follow that mad hunch of yours without telling either of our supervisors? Now, before you answer me, remember that _I really wanted to_ is possibly not the greatest of reasons.”

Harry scowled. “We got the guy, anyway.”

“And another black mark,” Malfoy said, throwing himself into a chair with a sigh. “I swear, I was beloved by authority before I became friends with you.”

“Which authorities,” Neville said, quite carefully, not sure whether he knew how to tease Malfoy in a friendly way, or if Malfoy would even want him to, or if Sunday hadn’t been some mad dream that would never happen again.

Malfoy seemed as startled as Neville; he flushed pink and didn’t look at Neville, but he said, with quite good humour, “Well, that’s another issue,” and smiled at the table instead. Neville supposed that had gone as well as it could. Ron was staring, mouth open, and Harry passed by him, still scowling, and smacked him casually across the back of the head.

Ron closed his mouth, cleared his throat. “Forgot about your exam,” he told Neville apologetically. “It was all right, then?”

“Yeah, fine,” Neville said. “I don’t know. I’ll know next week, they post the results on Monday.”

“God, I hate exams,” Ron said. “Sure you don’t want to come into business with me and George?”

“I don’t think you’d want me,” Neville said. “Maths was never my strongpoint.” Not to mention he had no interest in running a shop; not to mention that seeing George Weasley was still somehow awful, like watching a man with his heart carved out and still walking.

“Ah, well,” Ron said. “Maybe Harry’ll get fired and come join us.”

“Any day now, probably,” Malfoy said, and smiled at Harry. “Are we doing dinner or are we going to The Crown?”

“The Crown,” Harry said, at the same time that Ron said, “Dinner,” so they ended up walking to The Crown via Neville’s favourite kebab shop.

Neville and Harry got falafels; Ron got a container of chips the size of his head and immediately, to groans all round, began to drown them in curry sauce. Malfoy gave Neville a cool, haughty look and said, “Well, I’ll get that chicken doner then, see what was so much better than my meal,” and Neville rolled his eyes but told them to use the better garlic sauce. All the same, when Malfoy took a bite he began to look immediately horrified, making an enormous deal of forcing himself to swallow as they walked onto The Crown.

“This is disgusting,” he said. “I was already offended but now I am doubly offended. I make a lovely meal, and instead you decide to eat this trash--”

“Everyone likes a doner once in a while,” Neville said. “Unless you’re a posh git.”

“I don’t believe this is a real animal,” Malfoy said. “I just can’t believe it. I can’t believe someone would choose to eat this--”

“Oh, honestly,” Neville said, and snatched it out of his hand. He gave Malfoy his falafel instead; Malfoy took a dubious bite and nodded reluctantly.

“Well, this is better,” he said. “But you can’t possibly want to eat that.”

“I eat them all the time, Malfoy,” Neville said. Ron and Harry moved ahead, casting amused looks over their shoulder.

“I refuse to believe it,” Malfoy said, and swept it out of Neville’s hand and into a rubbish bin as they passed, which was typical rich Malfoy bullshit, except that somehow it didn’t seem to bother Neville as much as it would usually. “We can share,” he said grandly, and they passed the falafel back and forth every few bites.

“You’re in charge of Malfoy if he gets pissed early ‘cos he hasn’t eaten enough,” Harry called back to Neville. “You know he’s a lightweight.”

Neville hadn’t; he tried not to pay too much attention to Malfoy. But he shrugged, amiable enough.

Ginny was already at The Crown; with her, eyes dark and mouth crooked, was Pansy Parkinson. Malfoy’s face lit up when he saw her, like always, and he came swaggering across the room while she pointed fingerguns at him, tangled her varnished nails in his hair when he leaned in for a hug. They’d dated once, Neville vaguely remembered from the Hogwarts gossip mill, and they looked at each other like they knew the other inside out.

Harry and Pansy didn’t like each other. They scowled, and Malfoy sat between them like the cat who’d got the cream. Neville sat with Ginny, who wasn’t drinking because she was leaving for another Harpies camp at 5am the next morning, and tried to explain his latest lab, and the weird, erratic magic the Flitterweed seeds floating in suspended lakewater were producing.

“But what’s it _for_?” Ginny said, and Neville shrugged helplessly, turned his palms up.

“Longbottom,” Malfoy said, leaning over his shoulder. Neville hadn’t noticed him getting up. “Another pint?”

“Uh, yeah, thanks,” Neville said. “One of the--”

“I know, you’re on the IPAs tonight,” Malfoy said, and slipped away.

“How long are you in town for, Pansy?” Ginny asked.

“Just a few days,” Pansy said, and yawned delicately. She had a job as a buyer of something that seemed to change, from week to week - vintage clothes, potion ingredients - and was rarely in London. Sometimes Malfoy would slip away for a weekend to meet her and come back with his hair bleached even paler from the sun and a touch of colour in his pale cheeks. “I’m off to Greece on Friday. Why, you want to come?”

“I’ve got a Harpies training camp,” Ginny said, which was an odd way of saying no. Neville suspected Ginny was a little fascinated by Pansy; she always talked to her, her back straight, one leg slightly extended like she was half-poised to flee. 

“Where’s that?” Pansy said.

“Wales.”

“Ugh.” Pansy wrinkled her nose. “Greece will be more fun.”

“Maybe,” Ginny said. “How are you on a broom?”

“Thankfully it’s been a long time since I had to find out,” Pansy said archly. “There are better ways to travel.”

“Has she started bragging about her magic carpet yet?” Malfoy said, arriving again and handing round the drinks. He set Neville’s pint in front of him and then, to Neville’s vague surprise, dropped into the empty seat at Neville’s right. He supposed it was easier than climbing back over Pansy. “Don’t believe her. It’s a threadbare old rag that starts wheezing after the first mile.”

“You’re just jealous because you don’t get to go on it,” Pansy said, picking up her martini. “He trashtalks it,” she explained to the rest of the table, “it doesn’t like it. Theo goes on it quite a bit.”

“Oh, Theo,” Malfoy said, rolling his eyes. 

“He’s doing very well,” Pansy said, as though Malfoy had enquired. She grinned suddenly at Neville, pointed. “He sends his love to the Gryffindors.”

Neville rolled his eyes.

“Why would he do that?” Malfoy said, sounding suspicious.

“He’s pining away,” Pansy said.

“He is not,” Neville said, palming the back of his neck. “We went on a few dates, that’s all.”

Malfoy choked on his drink. Ron said, “You never told us that, mate.”

“It was just a couple of times,” Neville said. “He was in my taxonomy class, before he dropped out.” He couldn’t help adding, a little meanly, “So I do go on dates sometimes.”

Malfoy stared at him. “I - where did you go?”

“Uh. Dinner?” Neville shrugged. “Breakfast, once?”

“ _Breakfast_?” Malfoy said, and Neville could feel his cheeks heating.

“Leave him alone,” Harry said, reaching over the booth to touch gently at Malfoy’s hair. It wasn’t clear which of them he was talking to.

“I’m just - surprised,” Malfoy said. He frowned, rubbing at one eyebrow with a faintly perplexed air. “Why didn’t you - why only a few dates?”

“Oh,” Neville said. He wasn’t used to this many people looking at him. “I don’t know. He was fine, I just don’t think we were very - compatible. He wasn’t very…” He paused, struggling.

After a moment, Malfoy said, “Nice?”

Neville raised his eyebrows. Malfoy looked away, pink-cheeked.

\---

They kept drinking; the night started taking on that slightly hectic, mad feeling, and Neville was in a good mood. At midnight the pub chucked them out and Malfoy and Harry smuggled their pint glasses out with them as they walked back to Grimmauld Place, weaving all over the footpath. Malfoy and Pansy were in furious argument with Ginny about the Wasps’ chances this year, and Malfoy kept looking over at Neville, waving him in as if for agreement. Neville didn’t actually pay much attention to Quidditch, it had never been his thing, but he agreed in any case, because it seemed to please Malfoy, and it meant they weren’t fighting. Neville liked not fighting.

In Grimmauld Place they sprawled out in the living room and started a swifty forgotten game of cards. Hermione had shown up, and Luna too; Neville thought Luna and Pansy might be flirting, but in wildly different directions. Malfoy was stalking about like an unsettled animal, sitting down and then leaping back up again, his hair mussed, eyes bright and dangerous. Once he snarled, “What are you looking at, Longbottom,” and then looked instantly regretful, sat down next to Neville.

“Sorry,” he said, in a much more normal voice. “You’re making me nervous. Have I got something on my face?”

“You’re fine,” Neville said, looking away, because actually, Malfoy was making him nervous, too, in a new and therefore more unsettling way, something different than anything else he’d ever tried. 

Neville struck up conversation with Hermione instead, and couldn’t help but be relieved when Harry said, “C’mon, Draco, come help me bring up more beers from the cellar, Kreacher’s gone to bed.”

“You spoil that house elf,” Malfoy said, but jumped up obligingly enough, and the two of them disappeared.

They’d been gone for a long while before Neville started to wonder. He supposed at first that they were sitting together, the way everyone found them sometimes, side by side on a step with their heads bent close, Malfoy talking fast and Harry watching him and nodding and putting his hand on Malfoy sometimes in that awkward, uncertain way he had with physical affection. Then he wondered briefly if they’d fallen down the steps and hurt themselves, but that seemed ridiculous, beyond imagining; then he remembered the accusation he’d levelled at Malfoy, how furious and embarrassed Malfoy had been, and wondered for a split second if maybe it was true.

It was only a second. But in it he found himself standing up and heading in the direction they’d gone.

They were in the kitchen, where they weren’t sitting close or kissing or anything. Harry was leaning against the table, patient, and Malfoy was striding back and forth. Neville heard his voice raised in anger before he even reached them, but it was only as he stepped into the doorway that the words Malfoy was saying actually filtered through.

“-- _hanging around, waiting for him to notice me_ ,” Malfoy said, in the horrible sing-song voice he’d used to mock Neville in second year, and Neville took a ragged step back, something hitting him like a punch. 

Malfoy and Harry both looked over. Malfoy’s eyes went dark with rage and he snarled, “Oh, perfect, you’re here.”

“I - fuck you,” Neville said, anger rising. “What weird game have you been playing?”

“Er,” Harry said, darting a look between them. “I might just - get back to the others - say goodnight to Ginny--”

“I knew you were up to something,” Neville snapped, pushing forward into the kitchen and ignoring Harry slipping past him. “What, have you just been making fun of me all this time?”

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ,” Malfoy said, which he’d also picked up from Harry. “You’re a fucking nightmare--”

“I didn’t ask you to come to St. Mungo’s!” Neville yelled. “I didn’t ask you to hang around and try to - try to be _nice_ , and I don’t know why you’re doing it, and it’s driving me mad--”

“It’s driving _you_ mad?” Malfoy yelled back. “I can’t do it for shit! I’m useless at it! And I’m sorry I was such a berk to you at school, I was a shit, I shouldn’t have done it and I wouldn’t ever forgive me, if I was you, but as it happened there was a war and my whole life went to hell and it wasn’t exactly hard for me to realise I’d been on the wrong side all along--”

“Are you expecting me to feel sorry for you?”

“No, I’m trying to explain!” Malfoy was hectic, bright-eyed. He came pacing up to Neville and Neville almost took a step back but changed his mind, stepped forward instead, and realised with a weird, distant little shock that Malfoy was tall but Neville was taller. He’d never really noticed before. In his head Malfoy always towered over him, the way he had when they were twelve, but now Neville had to look down to meet Malfoy’s glittering gaze.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” Malfoy said, still glaring. “I can write Potter off as a madman and clearly traumatised from birth and just - just _too magic_ , he’s too _much_ , but you were just like me! You were just a Pureblood kid! And it’s not like you had some knack for it or some brilliant homelife that I never had, I was better off than you, and you were just - you were just good!”

“What?” Neville said, gaping. This conversation had derailed; he couldn’t follow it anymore. He could only stare, as Malfoy ran a hand through his hair, stormed away, stormed back. 

“You’re not brave because it’s easy, you’re brave because it’s right,” Malfoy raged. “And it doesn’t - I think it _doesn’t_ come naturally to you, you know, and that’s not me being a prick, I’m just - I’ve just been paying attention. You don’t know what it’s like. You were scared and you were a hero anyway.”

“Malfoy,” Neville said.

“So fuck you,” Malfoy said. “ _Obviously_ I’m pathetic. Fuck you!”

Neville caught Malfoy’s wrist and Malfoy, at last, went still. He was breathing quickly, staring up at Neville, and Neville said, “Why were you making fun of me to Harry?”

Malfoy laughed, breathless and infuriated. “I wasn’t making fun of you. I was making fun of me. You’re very annoying, you know,” he added, in a more normal tone. “You get about half the picture and think you’ve got the whole thing. Harry’s the same. I think there was something in the water in Gryffindor Tower--”

Neville used the height he had on his childhood bully and shouldered him back against the sink. Then he kissed him. Malfoy let out a gasping, shivering breath and grabbed at him, arms sliding around Neville’s neck, all the anger in his frame stringing tight and then disappearing, his body going loose and languid against Neville’s. He made a quiet little noise that made Neville’s pounding heart hesitate, stutter.

“What are you, what are you,” Malfoy began, between hot, urgent kisses. “What are you doing, you don’t even like me--”

“I’m taking you home,” Neville said, and closed his eyes. He could feel Malfoy’s smile, pressed to Neville’s jaw, as they Apparated away.

\---

Neville woke up with the light spilling across his bedroom, hitting the floorboards so they went gold and sending dustmotes spinning. The plants in the corner stretched out towards it, yearning, and when Neville opened his eyes a little more he could see Malfoy lying on his back beside him, tracing the hickeys on his chest with a faintly stunned expression.

Neville pressed his forehead against Malfoy’s shoulder and yawned. “Morning,” he said.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Malfoy began, the first words in what, Neville was sure, would be a day of endless chattering. Malfoy talked a lot. Neville was starting to enjoy it. “Hello. I was going to go get breakfast but I wasn’t sure what you had in your flat--”

“Nothing,” Neville said.

“That’s what I thought,” Malfoy said. He was speaking very quickly. Neville thought he might be nervous. “I could go to the shop and get something. I could make you something. If you don’t want a _kebab_ instead,” he added nastily, then continued smoothly, “or we could go eat at a cafe, I suppose. Or I could just go back to Grimmauld Place. Harry will probably be worried. He worries, you know, I think it’s the saviour thing, he likes to know where everybody is, and Ginny’s off again this morning, so he’ll be sulking about that--”

Neville pushed up on one elbow and then leaned down to kiss Malfoy, messy and sure. Malfoy sighed. He slid one hand up into Neville’s hair, stroking through his curls. Neville said, “Do you want to go back to Grimmauld Place?”

“Not really,” Malfoy said.

“All right,” Neville said. “Shut up, then.”

“You know,” Malfoy said, smiling crookedly up at him, “I actually don’t think _you’re_ very nice.”

Neville rolled his eyes. “I think we should date,” he said.

“Oh,” Malfoy said. He went pink again.

“But you can make me breakfast first,” Neville said generously. 

“That seems fair,” Malfoy said. He was smiling again, his whole face lit up with it. Neville recognised it now, that weird mocking look in Malfoy’s eyes, the way his gaze had followed Neville about a room. It wasn’t so cruel.

**Author's Note:**

> [im on tumblr w the cool kids](http://dddraconis.tumblr.com/)


End file.
